Business Process Modeling Patterns Literature
Ralf Laue1, Agnes Koschmider2, Michael Fellmann3, Andreas Schoknecht4, and Arthur Vetter4
1 University of Applied Sciences Zwickau, Department of Computer Science, Dr.-Friedrichs-Ring 2a, 08056 Zwickau, Germanyralf.laue@fh-zwickau.de
2 Process Analytics Group, Kiel University, 24098 Kiel, Germany ak@informatik.uni-kiel.de
3 Institute of Computer Science, University of Rostock, Germany michael.fellmann@uni-rostock.de
4 KIT, Institute for Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods arthur.vetter@partner.kit.edu
Abstract. Patterns – descriptions of proven and well-documented so- lutions for recurring problems – have gained widespread interest and acceptance in the area of business process modeling.
In the past years, a large number of such patterns have been documented in the literature. However, it is still difficult to find patterns that can be useful in a given context. The reason is that the relevant publications are spread in various journals and other types of publications, and there is no guidance for locating a pattern that can be useful for solving a given problem.
In this demo, we present an interactive web-site that provides a compre- hensive overview on published work in the field of business process model- ing patterns. It allows finding publications on business process modeling patterns based on various search criteria. It is intended to be useful both for business process modeling practitioners as for researchers in need of sound literature references. Currently, this catalog (meant to be a grow- ing resource) provides an categorization of 95 publications on patterns as well as 50 publication on anti-patterns.
Keywords: patterns·anti-patterns·workflow patterns.
1 Introduction
The idea of publishing well-documented and proven solutions to recurring prob- lems in a structured way as patterns can be traced back to the work of Alexander et al. [1] which discussed patterns for town planning and architectural design of buildings. In computer science, the software design patterns introduced by Gamma et al. [5] paved the way for pattern use.
Although a considerable number of papers about patterns in the area of business process modeling (BPM) have been published, it is rather difficult for
a process modeler or a researcher to find out which published patterns could be helpful in a given situation. There are two reasons for this:
First, relevant publications can be found in a great variety of proceedings, journals and web sites. For certain types of patterns, compilations of the patterns and related work can be found on the web. The most remarkable web site ishttp:
//www.workflowpatterns.com, which is a great resource for getting familiar with a certain kind of business process model patterns. However, this site is restricted to “low-level” patterns that describe the basic building blocks that a workflow engine or process modeling language should support. Prior to our work, no single resource existed that provides an entry point for searching the full spectrum of BPM pattern papers.
And second, patterns dealing with the same topic are not named in a unified way. For example, patterns dealing with adaption and change between model variants are calledchange patterns[10], adaption patterns [3],variability design patterns [12],high-level change operations [8] or just differences [2] by different authors.
To overcame the second problem, we suggested a taxonomy for BPM patterns [4] and anti-patterns [7]. For this purpose, we conducted an extensive literature review, followed by a classification of 89 papers on BPM patterns and 48 papers on anti-patterns. Details can be found in our mentioned publications.
Once having the literature overview as well as the classification, it was our aim to provide a starting point for the search for business process modeling patterns that can be used by practitioners and researchers. The result – our interactive pattern catalog http://www.bpmpatterns.org – will be presented in this paper.
2 Target Audience and Use Cases
The tool is intended to serve both researchers as practitioners.
The benefit for researchers who want to get an overview over existing work is that they can easily get access to the existing literature despite the problem that different authors use a different terminology.
The same is true for people who aim to publish an own pattern paper. For this kind of publications, a paragraph “Related Patterns” is usually an important part of a pattern documentation. Our catalog provides access to these patterns and allows to put the own publication into context. While we do not recommend to use the pattern catalog as the only source for searching the literature, we are convinced that it is a good starting point to locate relevant references quickly.
The second target audience are practitioners who want to model a common situation in a good manner. For example, take the requirement to model an approval process where several roles must agree before approval will be granted.
Without any doubt, this is a frequently occurring situation. It would be nice to reuse an existing solution that has been published as a pattern.
The typical way to search for such a pattern would be to use a search en- gine, e.g.GoogleorGoogle Scholarwith a query such asapproval AND pattern
AND (workflow* OR "business process"). Unfortunately, neither of the men- tioned search engines would list the highly relevant patterns published in “Sim- plifying the Design of Signature Workflow with Patterns” [6] among the first ten results pages. It is rather unlikely, that a practitioner would expand the search after reading more than 10 result pages from the favourite search engine.
In our catalog, this paper (and others relating to model a approval process) can be found immediately by searching for “approval”, as well as by searching for synonyms such as “permission”, “authorization” (or “authorisation”), etc.
3 The Interactive Pattern Catalog
The online catalog at http://www.bpmpatterns.org provides an overview of the published literature on BPM patterns. If possible, each entry directly links to the original paper. There are several ways to access the catalog:
By browsing the (anti-)pattern taxonomy As can be seen in Fig. 1, the catalog is organized by topics using a two-level taxonomy for patterns and another one for anti-patterns. Example category names such as “Business Process Compliance”,
“Role and Resource Assignment” or “Domain-dependent Content Patterns” give an impression on the broad scope of BPM patterns.
Fig. 1.Accessing the Catalog by Browsing the Taxonomy
By searching for a pattern name All publications on patterns who have got a name can be found by entering the name in the search field. Fig. 2 shows the result when searching for the pattern name “Structured Loop” (which is one of the well-known workflow patterns). The search results in Fig. 2 illustrates a decision that has been made when selecting the literature represented in the catalog. While the paper “Workflow Control-Flow Patterns: A Revised View”
[9] is represented, older papers such as [11] or works discussing how modeling languages support workflow patters were deliberately not included. It was not our aim to create a catalog that contains metadata for all publications which mention pattern in the area of business process modeling. Rather, it was our aim to establish a concise reference of all those papers where the original pattern definitions can be found.
Up to now, 1444 names of patterns and anti-patterns are currently included in the catalog.
Fig. 2.Searching for a Pattern Name
By searching for properties or keywords It is also possible to search the catalog according to various aspects. For example, it is possible to search for patterns that are relevant to a given modeling language only. In addition, 1064 keywords have been manually added to the papers. This addresses the fact that in the pattern literature it is not uncommon that different phrases are used for indi- cating the same concepts. Fig. 3 shows the first lines of the search results when searching for the keyword “soundness” among the literature on anti-patterns.
Fig. 3.Keyword Search at http://www.bpmpatterns.org
4 Outlook
It is our aim to keep the bibliography our pattern catalog up-to-date by adding further pattern papers. Currently, the online catalog already contains references to pattern papers that are not yet included into our literature surveys [4,7].
Therefore, we will be grateful for being informed about any new work in this area. We will be glad to add any relevant work that will be published in the future. We hope thathttp://www.bpmpatterns.orgwill become a starting point for everyone who is interested in learning about business process modeling patterns.
5 Tutorial
While we hope that the catalog athttp://www.bpmpatterns.orgcan be used in an intuitive way, a short text tutorial can be found athttp://www.bpmpatterns.
org/files/tutorial.pdf
References
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